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THE SHIP’S BOY.
“Hillo!” said Westbrook, “who’s skulking here?” and he pushed his foot against a dark heap, huddled up under the shade of one of the guns. As he did so, a slight, pale-faced, sickly-looking boy started up. “Ah! it’s you, Dick, is it?—why I never before thought you’d skulk—there, go—but you mustn’t do it again, my lad.”
The boy was a favorite with all on board. He had embarked at Newport, and was, therefore, a new hand, but his quiet demeanor, as well as a certain melancholy expression of face he always wore, had won him a way to our hearts. Little was known of his history, except that he was an orphan. Punctual in the discharge of his duties, yet holding himself aloof from the rest of the boys, he seemed to be one, who although he had determined to endure his present fate, was yet conscious of having seen better days. I was the more confirmed in my belief that he had been born to a higher station from the choice of his words in conversation, especially with his superiors. His manner, too, was not that of one brought up to buffett roughly against fortune. That one so young should be thrust, unaided, out into the world, was a sure passport for him to my heart, for his want of parents was a link of sympathy uniting us together; and we had, therefore, always been as much friends as the relative difference of our situations, on board a man-of-war would allow. Yet even I, so great was his reserve, knew little more of his history than the rest of my shipmates. Once, indeed, when I had rendered him some little kindness, such as an officer always has it in his power without much trouble to himself, to bestow upon an inferior, his heart had opened, and he had told me, more by hints though than in direct words, that he had lost his father and mother and a little sister, within a few weeks of each other, and that, houseless, penniless and friendless, he had been forced to sea by his only remaining relatives, in order that he might shift for himself. I suspected that he did not pass under his real name. But whatever had been his former lot, or however great were his sufferings, he never repined. He went through his duty silently, but sadly, as if—poor child!—he carried within him a breaking heart.
“Please, sir,” said he, in reply to Westbrook’s address, “it’s but a minute any how I’ve been here.”
“Well, well, Dick, I believe you,” said the warm-hearted midshipman. “But there go eight bells, and as your watch is up, you may go below. What! crying—fie, fie, my lad, how girl-hearted you have grown.”
“I am not girl-hearted always,” sobbed the little fellow, looking up into his superior’s face, “but I couldn’t help crying when I thought that to-night a year ago my mother died, and I crept under the gun so that no one might see and laugh at me, as they do at every one here. It was just at this hour she died,” he continued, chokingly, bursting into a fit of uncontrollable weeping, “and she was the only friend I had on earth.”
“Poor boy! God bless you!” said Westbrook, mentally, as the lad, finishing his passionate exclamation, turned hastily away.
It was my watch, and as Westbrook met me coming on deck, he paused a moment, and said,
“Do you know any thing about that poor little fellow, I mean Dick Rasey? God help me I’ve been rating him for skulking, when the lad only wanted to hide his grief for his mother from the jests of the crew. I wouldn’t have done it for any thing.”